Shattered Glass
by dansesinfernale
Summary: "You can't just keep doing this to me, Sherlock." Irene said, firmly taking the bottle from him. "You can't just keep walking into my life, destroying absolutely everything and leaving me to pick up the pieces." Adlock, Pre-Season Three.


The night he arrived, it was raining.

Not gentle, calm drizzling, mind you. It was real, violent thunder storming, complete with a spectacular lightning show.

Irene sat there at the head of her long table, a dark head propped up on one hand and staring into the distance.

The knock on the door resounded throughout her house, shattering whatever thoughts she might have been having at the time.

"Come in." she said absently, and then, remembering that the doors were locked, dashed to look for her gun and keys, hoping to god that it wasn't some psychotic, spurned ex-lover that had come to take his revenge. She might just let him have it, so dire was her mood today.

"Let me in already, I'm freezing." came a brusque voice, slightly muffled by the door in-between them.

She knew that voice.

Quickly, she unlocked the door and gave a sharp intake of breath.

"Sherlock." she said, slightly surprised, not at his arrival, but by his appearance.

He was tanned, ginger, and leaner than ever, his long fingers curling around her doorframe and a backpack carelessly swung onto his back.

"Surprised, Ms Adler?"

"Not at all. You flatter yourself. I merely thought that you looked… different." she shrugged, stepping back a little to take in the full view of him.

"Sun in Brazil. And a rather good wig-maker." he said, stepping from her porch and into her house, where he immediately began examining her hall.

"A genuine Vermeer?" he raised an eyebrow as she did up all the locks on her door.

"I enjoy collecting art. Is that too hard to believe?" she smiled back at him, feeling her blood course rather pleasantly through her body, a heightened sensation that she had come to associate with being in close proximity to a certain Mr Sherlock Holmes.

"Or stealing it, rather." he coughed none too discreetly, and grinned back at her, as she tried to fight the rising blush at his handsome face staring directly at her.

She honestly hated how he made her feel.

"So, what brings you here, Sherlock? It can't be my company— I seem to recall you refusing it very vehemently the last time I offered it." she arched a delicate eyebrow, crossing her arms and leaning against a wall casually. Of course, they remembered the tension filled last moments together, the adrenaline rush on his part for having peeled away another layer of a complicated case and utter embarrassment on her part for having gotten attached to a client.

"Business." was the simple reply as he made his way into her living room, tossing his bags into a corner of the room in an untidy heap and helping himself to a bottle of whisky that stood on the sideboard of her table. Not even bothering to use a cup, he twisted open the cap and sipped it as delicately as if he were using a china teacup.

"Business?" she asked disbelievingly, following him into her living room.

"Some of Moriarty's network is in this town, and I thought you might like to help." he shrugged, sitting down on one of her comfortable sofas.

Irene scoffed.

"Whoever said I wanted to help?" she asked, taking the bottle from his hand and downing a healthy swig of the whisky, which coursed through her bloodstream the moment she swallowed, giving her a sort of liquid courage.

"Irene, you're becoming a spinster and a low-class art thief. You're bored, and need something to do, and you definitely haven't been out of the house for at least two months."

She flushed, but retorted quickly: "You're lost, not knowing who you really are, and you're wandering around the world solving cases in the hope that you'll somehow forget all the people you hurt, and to avoid the fact that you're actually supposed to be dead." She saw that she had struck a rather sensitive nerve there, for he did not reply, only taking the whisky bottle back and drinking it.

"You can't just keep doing this to me, Sherlock." Irene said, firmly taking the bottle from him. "You can't just keep walking into my life, destroying absolutely everything and leaving me to pick up the pieces."

Sherlock snorted, snatching the bottle away from her. "If I recall, _you _were the one that walked into _my _life, Miss Adler."

Irene just glared at him and downed her whisky. Sherlock Holmes was a whirlwind, honestly, but she was addicted to him— and he to her. They would never be able to get out of this cycle unless they truly wanted to, a never ending cycle of leaving and returning, of breaking the delicate balance held between them and then rebuilding it again.

But then again, they were Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes. Surely they could pull off anything, and this dysfunctional relationship included.


End file.
